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elrond 18

This seems eminently sensible, but it has to go hand in hand with very proactive clamp down on the illegal brothels. Amsterdam is learning this and is now actively removing the criminal element from brothels.

At the same time the ability to open a brothel must not be tied up in so much red tape and planning as to make it virtually impossible to open one.

In my town where there are several brothels, but it is not at all possible to open a sex shop. Imagine if a brothel was to apply to open, then all the 'good people' will be up in arms fighting iits creation.

So in the current climate of tightening up on pole dancing clubs, and regulation on sex shops, I see it unlikely that this would work very well.

Examples are in Australia where in some states there are more illegal brothels than legal, this is because it is too difficult to open a legal brothel.

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MarcoPolo 12

Just a small point, but I question the implication that anyone from "beyond the EU" is necessarily trafficked. There are plenty of economic migrants from beyond the EU who come here to work willingly in the sex industry.

Conversely, we have seen the UK authorities referring to EU citizens (from Poland or wherever) as "trafficked" simply because they have come here on some sort of debt bond deal. This not even for sex work, but to pick vegetables.

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Peter Ohanrahahanrahan 10

It would make sense therefore for brothels to be legalised. This means that it would be much easier to make sure that the girls are not illegally trafficked (from abroad or internally within the UK), can be supported by community workers, and could also even be accredited (in the sense that they are regularly tested for STDs and drug use).

If they were legal, there would be the opportunity to tax them, which could probably do some good in funding clean up of "red light" areas or otherwise.

There is the NIMBY argument, but most cities have a run-down or non residential area that could be an appropriate place for these kind of businesses to operate from.

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Barrack 20

This seems eminently sensible, but it has to go hand in hand with very proactive clamp down on the illegal brothels. Amsterdam is learning this and is now actively removing the criminal element from brothels.

Just because Dutch officials saying they are actively removing the criminal element from the Amsterdam RLD doesn't mean to say they are, and even if they are the way they are going about it is not eminently sensible in my opinion, but far too excessive.

They are going to close down the windows in, among others, my 2 favourite, luckiest streets for finding fantastic women in the main RLD, Trompettersteg and Oude Kennissteeg, and they are planning to close down the whole of the minor RLD The Singel. The Singel is an open place, not a hidden underground one, and if the authorities thought all the windows in the Singel were controlled by traffickers they should go and close the place down immediately not put it down in their plans for the future.

If they do close down all the windows in the RLD they say they are it might encourage traffickers to Amsterdam to fill the gap in the market with trafficked women sold underground, under the government's radar.